


this time is difficult

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3488762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve goes back in time to save Bucky. But time is a complicated thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this time is difficult

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [此世艰辛](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157292) by [cindyfxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cindyfxx/pseuds/cindyfxx)



> Thanks and love to Sara, who was like, "what if Steve went back in time," and then encouraged me when I said, "and what if they pine for each other for like 140 years".
> 
> Title from [Neruda](http://radicaljournal.com/poetry/with_her_pablo_neruda.html), because I am weak.

Bucky falls. Steve wakes up.

He still dreams of Bucky falling. He kicks off the blankets and swings his feet off the bed, sits with his elbows on his knees and his head between his hands.

“Interesting,” a voice says.

Steve jerks up. There’s no one in the room. His senses would have detected an intruder.

“Don’t mind me,” says the voice. “Let’s talk about you.”

The hairs on his neck are standing up. “Who are you?” Steve says. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” the voice laughs. “Only to help you.”

The room suddenly goes very cold. “Bucky!” Steve hears his own ragged voice say. And then, in response: Bucky, screaming. He’s heard that scream nearly every night.

“Stop it!” Steve shakes his head. His fists are clenched. “That’s not — it’s not for you — “

“No, it’s for you,” the voice says. “But you’d like to fix it, wouldn’t you?”

“Fix it?” Steve repeats. “Fix — what do you mean?” His heart is suddenly pounding very fast.

“Just as I said. I could send you back. Maybe you’d save your friend. Maybe nothing would change. Time is a complicated thing.”

“I could save Bucky,” Steve says. He feels too big for his skin. “What’s the catch?”

“Are you always so picky with gifts?” The voice sounds a tad exasperated. “I’m doing this as a favor.”

Steve breathes. He looks down at his hands, where his nails are pressing bluish crescents into his palm. He straightens his fingers and presses his palms to his thighs.

He could save Bucky. No HYDRA. No Pierce.

“Do it,” Steve says. His voice sounds high, breathless. “Send me back, please.”

“That’s the spirit,” the voice says. “Off you go!”

———

It happens between one moment and the next. All the breath in his body is slammed out of him, like he’s fallen from a great height.

Steve opens his eyes. It takes them a second to adjust to the darkness.

He’s inside a tent, tangled in a bedroll. He wiggles out of it quickly, looks around. There’s Bucky’s bedroll, empty, across from him. His boots, the ones that he hadn’t broken in yet. Steve touches them, unbelieving. The leather is stiff under his fingertips, and shiny.

Steve takes a moment to sit with his head between his knees, taking gulps of air.

It’s real. The way his shirt sits on his shoulders is comfortable — even the air smells familiar.

“Bucky,” he whispers.

His hands reach under the bedroll, near automatically, and fish out his sketchbook. He flips through the pages, looking for a date, anything —

It’s October of 1944. Two months ‘til Zola. Two months until Bucky falls from a train.

Steve lets his head fall back. This isn’t going to be easy. If he had his way, Bucky would be on his way stateside tomorrow.

“All you have to do is catch him,” Steve reminds himself. He can do this. What good is all his strength if he can’t save one man?

He puts the sketchbook back and pulls on his boots. Bucky must be out on watch. He’ll be there, when he walks out of the tent. Like nothing’s happened.

Nothing’s going to happen.

Outside, the moon is half-full. It’s enough to see by — he sees the familiar swish of Bucky’s coat before he blends again into the trees.

Steve’s heart is pounding. He clenches his fingers into fists and sticks them in his pockets.

“Bucky?”

A rustle, and then —

“Heya, Steve.” Bucky’s looking at him. Bucky’s standing in front of him. Bucky’s _right here_ , shoulder jammed against a tree, and his teeth are white as he grins.

Steve can’t breathe. Every pull of air comes into his lungs, achingly slow. He wants to grab him, make sure he’s real. He wants to bury his face into Bucky’s shoulder and breathe in the scent of him.

He doesn’t do anything. Just stands there, hands in his pockets, and grins back. His face hurts from grinning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Thought I’d come out for air.”

Bucky nods, once. He looks back into the trees — his profile is lined against the light, and so familiar, so close — and then tips his head back at Steve. “Gotta get your beauty sleep, pal,” he says, and grasps Steve’s shoulder.

The warmth of his touch bleeds through Steve’s shirt. He swallows. Forces himself not to lean in to the touch.

When Bucky rocks back, though, he can’t help catching hold of Bucky’s wrist in one hand. He feels the play of tendons and bone under his hand, the warmth of Bucky’s flesh. It’s making him grin foolishly.

“Hey,” Steve says, “be careful out here.”

Bucky looks down at where Steve’s hands are circling his wrist. His face is in shadow. “Course,” he says, and carefully withdraws his hand. “Always am.”

“I know,” Steve says. Affection is bubbling over his chest, into his voice. “G’night, Buck.”

“Night, Steve,” Bucky says, and leans back against the tree. His hands are back on his rifle, nearly motionless.

“Yeah,” Steve says. He lingers for another second, and then turns around and walks back to the tent.

He slides into the bedroll and closes his eyes, but he can’t sleep. He thinks about Bucky’s hand, the curve of his wrist as he rested his hand on Steve’s shoulder.

———

Bucky slips into the tent sometime during the night. Steve has his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. He listens to the sounds of Bucky undressing and sliding into his bedroll; and he must have listened to those sounds a thousand times before, but this time they’re more real than they’d ever been before — they matter, somehow.

In the morning Dum Dum makes coffee. It’s strong and bitter and there’s no milk or sugar. Steve tries to drink it without wincing. Apparently he’s gotten more used to the 21st century than he’d imagined.

Bucky’s got a knife, a small and deadly looking thing. He flips it over in his hand and the blade catches the glint of the sun. He does it again. His coffee sits untouched on the ground.

Steve looks at the way Bucky’s hand moves, a quick flick of his wrist up and then back down.

A knot of panic builds up in Steve’s chest. He doesn’t remember that. He doesn’t remember Bucky doing that.

In Brooklyn Bucky had gotten into knife-fights in the alleys, and come home bleeding and with his shirt slashed. Steve had sewn up the rips with small even stitches and washed out the blood and never mentioned it at all.

Bucky catches Steve’s eye and lays the knife on his boot. After a moment, he swallows down a mouthful of coffee and starts sharpening it, quick and clean.

“New knife,” Dum Dum says. “Get it from a German?”

Bucky shrugs. The knife is gleaming in the morning light. “Something like that.”

———

They’re due back in London and Peggy meets them at the airport. At the sight of her, Steve’s mouth goes dry.

He knows Peggy had a good life, and he doesn’t think she regrets it. Nevertheless, it aches somewhere deep inside him to see her young and full of life.

“Gentleman,” she says, crisp and clear like the first time they’d met. “The SSR has an assignment for you.”

“The SSR’s always got an assignment for us,” Morita grouses. “Can’t they find someone else to do the job?”

“Not if they want the best,” Peggy says to a round of cheers. “Debrief’s at nineteen-hundred. Might want to wash up.”

The men disperse. Steve wants to speak to Peggy but has no idea what to say. In the end, he just smiles at her and hopes he doesn’t look too ridiculous.

She smiles back, very bright. He feels like his heart is breaking.

———

They make camp somewhere in Austria. Dernier makes a fire; Dum Dum and Monty go for recon. Bucky lies back and opens a K-ration, passes Steve the biscuits.

“You need to eat,” Bucky says.

“So do you,” Steve points out. Bucky lost weight in Azzano, and hasn’t gained it back yet. His shoulders are sharp, bony.

“Take the damn biscuits, Rogers,” Bucky says, and there’s a set to his jaw that means he’s ready to pick a fight.

Steve’s tired. He takes the biscuits. Bucky watches as he eats them one by one, catching crumbs in his hand and swallowing them all.

“There, you see?” Bucky says when Steve’s finished. “Gotta keep up your strength.”

Monty and Dum Dum have come back. They’re starting a game of cards. Steve watches, feeling loose and happy.

Bucky stands up, his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’ll take first watch,” he says.

“Bucky,” Steve protests, but he’s already making his way into the woods.

Steve sighs.

“Barnes’s got a bit twitchy, hasn’t he,” Morita says.

“I dunno,” Steve says. “I think he’s worried.”

“Yeah,” Morita says, and lights a cigarette. “Then again, which of us isn’t?”

———

Steve watches Bucky a lot. Every day, it feels like a miracle that Bucky is alive and with him. He wants to touch him. He wants to draw him.

He doesn’t, though. He opens up his sketchbook and forces himself to draw other things instead: Gabe quietly curled up around the radio, Dernier and his explosives. He’s drawing half from life and half from memory. They don’t always come out right, and then he tears out the page and crumples it up, tosses it into the fire.

Sometimes Bucky comes to sit by him. He takes apart his rifle, cleaning it carefully, and occasionally raises his head up to look at what Steve’s drawing.

Not much commentary, though. That’s something the war’s changed.

The fire’s hot and there’s the comforting murmur of conversation around him. He feels nearly drowsy, at peace with Bucky at his side. It’s a good feeling; he’s drowning in it.

Then Bucky looks over his shoulder and says, “Trains?”

Steve looks down at the page. Up in the corner, there’s a train speeding into the mountains. Steve remembers that train. Steve’s dreamt about that train.

He slams the sketchbook shut. His heart is pounding. “Yeah,” he says. “I dunno.”

Bucky stares at him for a moment. Then he drops his eyes and says, “Never did like ‘em much.”

Steve has a vague memory of being eleven and taking the train to Manhattan, Bucky drumming his feet beside him. The world full of possibilities, and the two of them grinning at each other like there was no one else in the car.

Things change. Steve tries for a small grin and says, “Me neither.”

Bucky starts to clean his rifle again. His motions are very smooth and precise.

Steve looks at Bucky’s hands and wonders where he’s going wrong. He thinks they’re talking across and not at each other at all.

———

They’re passing through liberated Paris. There’s a church full of wounded; Morita asks if they can stop a while and help.

There’s a man with a leg missing asking for morphine. Across from him is another, his arm ending in a stump. There’s blood leaking through his bandages and he whimpers as he tries to shift on the cot.

“Poor bastards,” Dum Dum says. He takes his hat off and bows his head for a moment.

“Yeah,” Bucky says hoarsely. He stares at them for a long time. His face is white.

“You alright, Buck?” Steve asks. They’re sitting on a pile of rubble while Morita’s got his hands wrist-deep in some man’s chest.

“‘m fine.” Bucky shudders and looks away from the church door at last. “Just thinking.”

“Well, don’t try too hard. You know how you get.”

Bucky cracks the faintest grin. “Shut up, Rogers,” he says, and nudges him with his shoulder. Steve feels warm all over at that gesture — like they’ve reached some semblance of normalcy, here in the middle of France where no one knows their names.

Dernier’s speaking rapid-fire French to a harried-looking nurse. She puts down a box beside them and crosses her arms, not impressed by whatever he’s saying.

Steve sees Bucky reach into the box. His hand curls around something, and then he’s pulling back, his hand thrust into the pocket of his blue coat.

The nurse wipes her forehead and picks the box back up again. She heads for one of the men who’s moaning with pain.

“She wasn’t that pretty, Frenchie,” Bucky calls. Dernier flips him a finger in response.

Steve watches them grin at each other and thinks, _please_.

Let it last.

———

The truth is: Steve is tired of fighting, tired of the war. He says nothing. He’s the leader of the Commandos, and Captain America besides. The men deserve better from him than this.

But every day he knows he’s one day closer to the train, and it makes him afraid. (Yeah, he’s afraid. Afraid that his strength will fail him and it will be this time.)

———

Steve finds Bucky in St. Paul’s. Bucky’s sitting near the front, his head bowed.

Steve approaches him slowly. “Bucky?” he says. His voice echoes under the high vaulted ceilings.

Bucky doesn’t raise his head, but there’s an easing of something around his shoulders. Steve slides onto the pew and nudges Bucky’s knee with his own.

“What’s going on, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs. His hands are tightly grasping the pew in front, tiny tremors shaking through them.  

“Do you —” Steve hesitates. “Do you want me to go?”

“ _No_.” Bucky says this very fast. his eyes are wide, and he shakes his head frantically. “Just. Stay with me for a while, will you?”

“Of course.” He leans onto the hard wooden back and watches Bucky tremble. He wants to do something, press his hand on top of Bucky’s, perhaps, but he doesn’t know if that would be welcome. So he sits and watches as whatever fear Bucky’s feeling shakes its way through him, leaving him pale and thin in the evening light.

Eventually Bucky swallows, hard, and pries his fingers off the pew. He bends and unbends his fingers slowly, wincing a little.

“Thank you,” he says. He sounds very alone.

“You know I’d do it any time,” Steve says, wishing he had taken Bucky’s hand after all. “Bucky. you’re — you’re my best friend.”

“You sure?” Bucky says. He grins, very sudden. “In fifth grade, I remember you were getting pretty friendly with Ernie McIntyre —”

Steve laughs, high and clear. “Shut up,” he says. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s still smiling. “Maybe I am.”

———

Bucky falls. Steve wakes up.

He sits up and wipes his face with a hand. It doesn’t help. He’s shuddering all over, like it’s too cold.

(It’s not the cold.)

He goes out of the tent, fumbling for a cigarette. He finds a match in his pocket and strikes it.

In the sudden flare of light he can see someone else coming toward him. He raises his head and listens to the footsteps come closer: step-step, step-step. It sounds like he’s limping.

“Hey, it’s me,” Bucky says. He frowns at the match. “You don’t smoke.”

He hadn’t smoked. Back in 2011 he’d bought a pack when he’d been trying not to miss Bucky, thinking about every bad habit he’d ever had. He finished the pack during long nights when the nightmares were too bad to shake off.

“Maybe I started,” he says. He lights the cigarette and presses it to the corner of his mouth.

“Share, will ya,” Bucky says, and holds out his own. Steve lights it for him before shaking the match out.

Steve breathes in the smoke and blows it out, thin. He looks at Bucky silhouetted in the haze, the small flame at his mouth.

“What,” Bucky says.

Steve wants to touch his face. He’s afraid Bucky’s going to disappear with the smoke.

“It’s your ugly mug,” he says instead. “Still surprised by it every time, an’ I’ve known you for years.”

“Pal, the irony of you talking about ugly.” Bucky laughs and pats the ground. They both sprawl out on the rocks, watching the moon rise up pale above the trees.

“Hey, Buck?” Steve says suddenly. It feels important to say it. “Are you ever scared?”

Bucky exhales. Smoke drifts up above his head. “All the time.”

“Yeah.” Steve swallows. He moves so their thighs are lined up, touching. “Me too.”

———

It feels almost like a gift, these two months with Bucky. He looks at the lines of Bucky’s face when he’s not looking back and pretends that it’ll last forever.

And then Jones picks up an encrypted message over the comms, and it doesn’t.

———

“This is the best chance we’ve had to get our hands on Zola,” Colonel Phillips says, “and none of you had better be stupid enough to mess it up.”

Peggy rolls out a map and taps at the Alps. “He’s taking a train to a base deep inside the mountains,” she says. “There’s only one way to get there and we know where it is.”

“We’re intercepting the train,” Steve says, like a dream.

“Better,” Colonel Phillips says. “We’re hitching a ride.”

Everyone starts talking all at once. Steve watches Bucky’s face, pale but animated. He’s volunteered — they’ve all volunteered.

“Rogers, Barnes, and Jones,” Colonel Phillips decides. “In and out, quick. Think you can take on one scientist?”

“Sure thing.” Jones is grinning. He holds out a hand at Bucky and Bucky clasps it, firm.

“Maybe Bucky shouldn’t be on this mission,” Steve finds himself saying.

Everyone looks at him. “I was just concerned,” Steve says. “Bucky’s met Zola before. It might not be good for him.”

“Are you kidding me, Rogers?” Colonel Phillips says. “I think Barnes can decide that for himself.”

“Yeah, I can,” Bucky says. He’s looking at Steve with a strange look on his face. “I’m ready to take down that bastard all by myself. _You_ can sit out if you want.”

“No one’s sitting out anything,” Peggy says. “Any other concerns?”

Steve bites his tongue. This isn’t the time to pick a fight. He can still save Bucky.

He can still save Bucky.

———

When they get back to the tent Bucky is furious.

“What was that?” Bucky asks. “Back there.”

“Nothing,” Steve says. “I just don’t know if you should be on the mission.”

“Are you questioning my abilities?” And now Bucky’s leaning into Steve’s space, nostrils flaring. “Because fuck you, Rogers. Fuck. You.”

Steve wants to pick a fight. Maybe then Bucky will storm off. Maybe then Bucky will sit the mission out and they won’t have to go through this.

But Steve’s not brave enough for that. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I just.” Steve sighs. “I got a bad feeling about this mission, that’s all.”

Bucky’s silent for a moment. He puts his rifle down and stare at Steve, steady. “Tell you what,” he says at last. “I sit this mission out, you gotta promise you won’t put the Valkyrie in the water.”

Steve freezes. He looks at Bucky — really looks at him, the way his left shoulder’s held higher than his right, the utter stillness of him. “You’re —” He can’t say it. And then he finds that he can: “You’re _my_ Bucky.”

Bucky drops his eyes. “Yeah.”

He thinks about Bucky touching him in the moonlight, passing over K-rations, shaking in a cathedral. He’s imagined this meeting a hundred times, finding Bucky, making him remember — but it turned out, Bucky found him first. Bucky’s been taking care of him all this time.

“How are we —” Steve tries to wrangle his thoughts. “How did you —”

“I dunno.” Bucky’s voice is flat. His face is blank.

There’s a hard feeling growing in Steve’s stomach. “Why are you here?”

Bucky gives him a humorless smile. Steve’s shaking his head before Bucky says it. “I gotta fall, Steve.”

“No,” Steve says. He’s standing up, pressing his hands to Bucky’s shoulders. “Bucky, no.”

“You can’t save me,” Bucky says. “Cause if you do, Steve, a lot of people are gonna die.”

“How?” Steve’s voice breaks. “Tell me.”

“I slow you down.” Bucky looks away from him, but the words don’t stop. “You don’t make it onto the Valkyrie. I saw it. Eight million people in New York, Steve. You gonna sacrifice them all for me?”

“We can change it,” Steve says. “I’ll be faster. We’ll work it out.” Even as he says it he knows how desperate he sounds. “Please.”

Bucky puts his hands on top of Steve’s. “You gotta let me go,” he says. “You’ve done it before.”

“I know,” Steve says. He’s crying. “Please don’t make me do it again.”

His face is wet. Bucky takes it in his hands — two hands, both flesh — and very gently pulls him forward.

“It’ll be okay,” Bucky says. “We find each other in the end, don’t we?”

And then Bucky is kissing him. Bucky’s mouth is warm and wet on his mouth and his hands are burning against Steve’s cheeks. “You gotta be okay, Steve,” Bucky whispers against his mouth. “Cause I don’t know if I can do it without you.”

Steve pulls him closer, stepping back until he stumbles at the edge of his cot. He lets Bucky press down on top of him. “Let me have you, then,” Steve says, halting. “Just this once. Let me have this, Buck.”

And Bucky says, “okay.”

They don’t have any kind of slick. Bucky spits on his fingers and opens Steve up, slowly.

Steve can’t help making a noise when Bucky enters him. Bucky’s hands are holding Steve’s and he goes in slow, until his hips are flush against Steve’s.

Steve’s buried his face into his arm. He can’t bear to look up.

Bucky’s pressing kisses to the back of Steve’s neck as he begins to move. “It’s alright,” he says. “It’s alright, Steve.”

Steve makes a choked sound. “I’ll find you,” he says. “Wait for me, okay, Buck? I’ll find you.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, and kisses him again. “You gotta do it, ‘cause I’m gonna forget, aren’t I.”

“You didn’t,” Steve says. He wants to remember this forever — Bucky, inside of him, his weight pressed against him like a heated blanket. “You never forgot me.”

“‘s because it’s you,” Bucky murmurs, almost too quietly for Steve to hear. “Steve, you make me want to remember —”

And then Bucky groans, very quiet, and presses his mouth to the muscle of Steve’s shoulder, and he’s coming inside Steve, he can feel it.

“Don’t,” Steve says when Bucky stirs on top of him. “Stay.”

“Alright,” Bucky says. He’s still inside Steve, softening, and this is all Steve wants: for there to be no space between them, at all, for as long as it can last.

———

Morning comes, eventually, Bucky stirs and unsticks himself from Steve’s back.

“We gotta get up,” he says.

“I know,” Steve says. He doesn’t, though, just rolls to his side and watches Bucky get dressed.

Bucky’s beautiful in the morning light. Steve looks at the curve of his ass as he steps into his pants, the way the muscles of his back move as he slides on a shirt. The way he rotates his left shoulder, like he’s compensating for a weight that’s no longer there.

It’s going to be there soon enough, and the terror of that makes Steve sit up at last.

He wants to say something. He wants to protest, once more, at the unfairness of it all. But Bucky’s made his choice and Steve might be a coward but he can’t take that away from Bucky.

He says nothing, and gets dressed.

———

“Maintenant,” Dernier shouts, and Steve leaps, lets the zipline take hold.

———

Down into the train. Steve takes point. Jones will come up the outside.

Steve looks back to make sure Bucky’s behind him. Bucky looks back and rolls his shoulders. “Still here,” he says. He tries to grin. “Keep walking, Rogers.”

Steve takes a step, and then turns around. He grips Bucky by the arms. “How can I do this?” he demands. “How can _you_ do this?”

Bucky presses his forehead into Steve’s shoulder. “Because I have to,” he says.

Then a door slides shut, and a robot is advancing on them.

“Stay back!” Steve shouts, spinning around and shoving Bucky behind him. He dodges a flash of  blue and aims the shield at the robot’s neck.

there’s wind on his face. The robot’s vaporized a hole in the side of the train. Steve’s aim is true — the robot’s head spins off its torso and goes flying out the car.

Steve looks back. Bucky is lying on the floor, looking stunned.

“We did it,” Steve whispers, pulling Bucky to his feet. “Buck —”

“No,” Bucky says. He looks at the robot collapsed on the floor. He seems stunned. “We can’t.”

“We did,” Steve says. He wraps his arms around Bucky, pressing his face to the curve of Bucky’s neck. “Please don’t go.”

Bucky tips Steve’s face up. “Steve,” he says hoarsely, and then presses his mouth over Steve’s, fierce. He leaves teethmarks on Steve’s lip. Steve lets him. Bucky’s safe. Everything will be fine. It must be fine.

And then Bucky rocks back and punches him.

Steve hadn’t expected that. He wobbles, winded. His vision goes blurry for a moment.

When he blinks his eyes clear, the only thing he can see is Bucky’s pained smile. “I’m sorry,” he says. He seems to want to say something more, and then shakes his head.

“Buck,” Steve gasps, but it’s too late. Bucky takes a running start and dives out of the train.

The wind takes his howl with him.

———

_You gotta do it, ‘cause I’m gonna forget, aren’t I_.

Steve is afraid. Bucky’s going to have to re-live hell all over again because Steve was selfish enough to try to fix it. Now that he has a new mission, he doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to do it.

“Peggy,” he says. “I’m gonna have to owe you that dance.”

Peggy’s voice cracks over the radio. He has her picture in his compass. He takes it into his hand and forces the plane down.

There’s a sigh in his ear. “Time is a complicated thing,” the voice says. “Well done.”

It whispers an address to him. A bank, in Washington, D.C.

The water hits the glass, a dark blue mass.

———

When he wakes up, he lets SHIELD brief him about the year. About what’s happened since he went down into the ice. He asks about Peggy.

They ask him to join SHIELD. He asks to think about it.

Forty-eight hours later, he’s in D.C. He’s dropped his SHIELD tail hours ago. He took his motorcycle.

He breaks into the bank. Beneath the ground, in a heavily guarded vault, he finds what he’s been looking for.

———

Bucky’s lips are still blue when Steve wrestles him out of the tank. He lays him out on the stainless steel table and watches the blood come back to his face.

“Bucky,” he whispers under his breath. “Come on.”

Time goes by achingly slow. Bucky’s breathing now, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, and occasionally a finger twitches. Other than that he’s motionless, like he’s still suspended in the cold.

Steve presses his hand to Bucky’s face — the warmth still hasn’t returned to his flesh — and carefully touches his lips to Bucky’s. It’s quick and dry and a little awkward: his nose bumps against Bucky’s and Bucky’s lips are cool to touch.

He sits back and waits. He feels foolish for expecting anything.

And then Bucky exhales, a soft, breathy sound.

“Bucky?” Steve says, He grasps Bucky’s flesh hand with his own and looks at Bucky’s face. “Buck.”

Bucky’s eyelids are moving now, light and fluttery like paper. He coughs wetly, like there’s something in his lungs, and struggles up. He looks at Steve.

He looks at Steve for a long time, puzzlement in his features. Steve feels his heart sink. He waits for the question.

And then Bucky’s forehead smoothes out, and he rasps, like his voice hasn’t been used in a very long time: “Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve whispers, and he’s crying, but it’s all right. “Yeah, it is.”

He kisses Bucky again. Bucky carefully puts his arm around Steve’s shoulders and kisses him back.

———

They’re at a cheap hotel with fake names and fake IDs. When they get inside the room, Bucky locks the door while Steve checks the windows, and they meet up by the double bed.

“Steve,” Bucky says first, and then he takes two steps forward and yanks Steve into a kiss. “Lemme look at you.”

“I’m right here,” Steve says, voice thick. “I came for you, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Bucky agrees, and pushes him down onto the bed. Steve goes, very pliant. “I want to see — I want to know if I remember —”

And then Bucky’s pulling at the hem of Steve’s shirt. Steve lets Bucky pull it over his head, and then brings his hands down to tug at his belt.

By the time Steve kicks off his shoes and pants, Bucky’s naked and looking at him with a feral sort of hunger.

“Do you know,” he asks breathlessly, “how many times I thought about this —” He traces the shape of Steve’s pectorals, cups his hipbones in the palms of his hands.

“You got a one track mind,” Steve grins, but he lies back and lets Bucky palm his dick.

“I had you,” Bucky insists as he climbs onto Steve’s stomach. “Even when I had nothing, I had you.”

Bucky spits on his fingers. For a moment Steve is sure Bucky’s going to open him up — but no, Bucky’s twisting at the waist and sinking his fingers into himself — and Steve’s heart gives a funny jerk.

“C’mon, Buck,” Steve says, because his throat is swelling and Bucky’s looking at him like he knows exactly what Steve’s thinking. “You say all these sweet things, but so far you’re all talk.”

“I’ll show you talk,” Bucky says, bending down to kiss him, and then he’s easing himself onto Steve’s dick. Jesus Christ, it’s hot and tight and then Bucky _moves_ and for a moment Steve’s sure that Bucky’s going to kill him, just like this.

Bucky’s mouth is on his mouth. Steve murmurs nonsense against Bucky’s skin as Bucky wrings pleasure from him, and then Bucky wraps Steve’s hands around his dick. Steve strokes it, warm and heavy in his grip, and the look on Bucky’s face is the best thing he’s ever seen.

———

Steve’s on the bed, naked. Bucky’s tapping lightly on Steve’s back.

“i cannot believe you, Rogers,” Bucky says. “It took seventy years and a time travel trip before you kissed me.” He presses a kiss onto Steve’s shoulder blade. “What does it take for you to get your act together?”

Steve can’t stop himself from smiling. “You,” he says, very soft.

“You’re a sap,” Bucky says. “You’re damn lucky I like you.”

“I know,” Steve says, his throat tight. But then again, Bucky’s tapping out Morse on Steve’s skin, so who’s a sap, really.

———

EPILOGUE

Tony wakes up when the security system beeps softly in his ear. He pulls up footage of his workshop and stares at the picture for a moment before he looks up.

“Hey, JAR?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me Captain America hasn’t broken into the tower.”

“It appears that Captain Rogers has indeed broken into the tower, sir.”

He watches for a moment. Captain America is sitting on the sofa. There’s another man leaning on his Maserati, his hand stroking the hood.

This is ridiculous. He puts on his suit and goes downstairs.

“I gotta say, good job on breaking in here,” he starts out. “Also, great costumes. But really, this is a little, I don’t know, illegal.”

“Tony,” Captain America says, standing up. Wow, he looks exactly like the pictures. “Sorry to barge in, we didn’t know where else to go. And we’re — not friends, exactly, but we will be.”

“Seriously?” Tony says. “One, you’re supposed to be dead. Two, I don’t really do friends. Three, who’s the guy with excellent taste in cars?”

“This is Bucky,” Captain America says, at the same time JARVIS says softly, “Sergeant James Barnes, of the hundred and seventh.”

“Right,” Tony says. “I need a drink. I need more than one drink. You guys want drinks?” He decides that the two of them might be cracked, but they’re not a threat, and cautiously takes off his helmet.

“Naw,” Captain America says, looking a bit bashful. “Can’t get drunk.”

“Right,” Tony says. “Dad told me that.”

“He’s Howard’s kid,” he hears Captain America say to Sergeant Barnes. Sergeant Barnes, wow. That’s a name he hasn’t heard since tenth grade history.

“Oh yeah?” Sergeant Barnes says. He comes out into the light and — okay, no one told him about the arm. The arm is great. The arm is fantastic. He’s gonna have to look at that arm sooner or later. “You know what, I think I like this kid better.”

Tony relaxes in his suit. Man clearly has taste. “Alright, let’s say you are who you say you are. What do you want from me?”

Captain America and Sergeant Barnes look at each other. They have identical smiles on their faces. “Tony,” they say, like they’d rehearsed it. “We’d like to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”

**Author's Note:**

> A bit from Bucky's POV [here](http://radialarch.tumblr.com/post/112579324236/ohsweetcrepes-replied-to-your-post-i-am-going-to). Warnings for gore.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] this time is difficult](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11226597) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
